Of course it’s the cars that attract throngs of people to the Tokyo Auto Salon. (c) Bertel Schmitt

Each year in January, the world’s craziest car show takes place in Tokyo. The Tokyo Auto Salon is probably the last car show on earth that shows more girls than cars. In America and Europe, ladies in pantsuits have long taken the place of booth babes. In China, where undress ruled until 2012, all car shows are buttoned-up.

Each year in Tokyo has an auspicious start: The Tokyo Auto Salon, probably the craziest car show in the whole wide world. And after Victorianism has declared victory over car shows elsewhere, the Tokyo Auto Salon probably remains the world’s sexiest.

The Tokyo Auto Salon is far out! All the way to Chiba, beyond Tokyo’s very generously drawn city limits. From where I live in Tokyo, it takes me as long to get to the Tokyo Auto Salon as from central Tokyo to Nagoya. The trip is worth it, and I make it every year.

As a Dailykanban tradition, here this year’s Tokyo Auto Salon picture album. And no, they don’t come with the car.

According to popular wisdom, Japan’s auto business is in deep trouble, due to a deadly combination of a rapidly aging population, and young people who have lost their lust for cars, even for sex. Go to the Tokyo Auto Salon, a wild and whacky car show that opened its doors yesterday in Tokyo, and you will quickly decide that popular wisdom doesn’t know what it is talking about.

The 2015 Tokyo Auto Salon opened its doors yesterday to throngs of people who took the pilgrimage to Makuhari Messe, a site that is so far out that it already is in Chiba. TAS 2015 is a must-go confab of wrenchers and wenches, it is mass worship of body modifications (both kinds,) and bolt-ons (both kinds.) The rites at the annual celebration are performed by pagan nuns in traditional attire. Following the traditions of TAS, there usually is very little attire. Which is made up by a lot of attitude.

(Careful: The following pictures will tax the bandwidth or your Internet connection, and the limits of good taste. In certain jurisdictions, if found with these pictures, you might be beheaded. Elsewhere, you may simply lose your head.)

At car shows around the world, it is becoming the custom to behave as if the babes in the booths are product specialists, here only to fulfill the desire for raw data. This trend has yet to reach the Tokyo Auto Salon, where hot pants have not been replaced by pant suits, and where sex is as much an important ingredient as horse power and outrageous designs.

Please proceed to our 33 picture gallery, and a virtual tour of the best models of the Tokyo Auto Salon. Give them a few seconds to load …

The antidote of the jacked-up trucks at SEMA are the krazy kustom keis at the Tokyo Auto Salon. The 0.6 liter bonsai cars, born out of a post-war necessity, are having a huge revival in Japan. Formerly a favorite of farmers, kei cars are now the choice of inner city hipsters – if they drive a car at all. This is a quick tour of the keis of the Tokyo Auto Salon.

The industry worries that today’s youth lost its fascination with cars. Not true, says Toyota, and condenses it down to a simple, concise message. (For good measure, there’s also “waku-doki” inside of two hearts. Waku-doki is the Japanese equivalent of “my heart goes boom-boom-boom.” Or so I am told.

Let’s not forget: The Tokyo Auto Salon is a bolt-on festival, and this display reminds us. But look at those prices! Take the last two digits off, and you have dollars. That socket set in the middle: Regular $702, show special $492. The small set on the left that goes in China for five bucks, here in Japan $358. Which is about what I pay in my neighborhood Tokyo home center. Anywhere else, like in Italy, where these tools allegedly come from, these prices may be outrageous. Here, nobody bats an eye.

If anyone says “undervalued yen” again, then I make them come over and buy tools.